• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.45-60
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• 2014

Dentist can obtain 3D anatomical information without distortion and information loss by using dental Computed Tomography scan images on line, and also can make the preoperative plan of implant placement or orthodontics. It is essential to segment individual tooth for making an accurate diagnosis. However, it is very difficult to distinguish the difference in the brightness between the dental and adjacent area. Especially, the root of a tooth is very elusive to automatically identify in dental CT images because jawbone normally adjoins the tooth. In the paper, we propose a method of automatically tooth region segmentation, which can identify the root of a tooth clearly. This algorithm separate the tooth from dental CT scan images by using Seeded Region Growing method on dental crown and by using Level-set method on dental root respectively. By using the proposed method, the results can be acquired average 19.2% better accuracy, compared to the result of the previous methods.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.803-808
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• 2002

This paper describes automatic methods for detection of kidney and kidney tumor on abdominal CT scans. The abdominal CT images were digitalized using a film digitizer and a gray-level threshold method was used to segment the kidney. Based on texture analysis results, which were perform on sample images of kidney tumors, SEED region of kidney tumor was selected as result of homogeneity test. The average and standard deviation, which are representative statistical moments, were used to as an acceptance criteria for homogeneous test. Region growing method was used to segment the kidney tumor from the center pixel of selected SEED region using a gray-level value as an acceptance criteria for homogeneity test. These method were applied to 113 images of 9 cases, which were scanned by GE Hispeed Advantage CT scanner and digitalized by Lumisvs LS-40 film digitizer. The sensitivity was 85% and there was no false-positive results.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.332-337
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• 2007

In the early twenty-first century, minimally invasive surgery is the mainstay of various kinds of surgical fields. Surgeons gave percutaneously surgical treatment of the screw directly using a fluoroscopic view in the past. The latest date, they began to operate the fractured carpal bone surgery using Computerized Tomography (CT). Carpal bones composed of wrist joint consist of eight small bones which have hexahedron and sponge shape. Because of these shape, it is difficult to grasp the shape of carpal bones using only CT image data. Although several image segmentation studies have been conducted with carpal bone CT image data, more studies about carpal bone using CT data are still required. Especially, to apply the software implemented from the studies to clinical fIeld, the outcomes should be user friendly and very accurate. To satisfy those conditions, we propose modified multi-seed region growing segmentation method which uses simple threshold and the canny edge detector for finding edge information more accurately. This method is able to use very easily and gives us high accuracy and high speed for extracting the edge information of carpal bones. Especially, using multi-seed points, multi-bone objects of the carpal bone are extracted simultaneously.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.942-952
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• 2006

We propose an automatic segmentation method for identifying pulmonary structures using gray-level information of chest CT images. Our method consists of following five steps. First, to segment pulmonary structures based on the difference of gray-level value, we select the threshold using optimal thresholding. Second, we separate the thorax from the background air and then the lungs and airways from the thorax by applying the inverse operation of 2D region growing in chest CT images. To eliminate non-pulmonary structures which has similar intensities with the lungs, we use 3D connected component labeling. Third, we segment the trachea and left and right mainstem bronchi using 3D branch-based region growing in chest CT images. Fourth, we can obtain accurate lung boundaries by subtracting the result of third step from the result of second step. Finally, we select the threshold in accordance with histogram analysis and then segment radio-dense pulmonary vessels by applying gray-level thresholding to the result of the second step. To evaluate the accuracy of proposed method, we make a visual inspection of segmentation result of lungs, airways and pulmonary vessels. We compare the result of the conventional region growing with the result of proposed 3D branch-based region growing. Experimental results show that our proposed method extracts lung boundaries, airways, and pulmonary vessels automatically and accurately.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.56-65
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• 2004

In this paper, we proposed the detection algorithm of microcalcification based on region growing method with contrast and edge sharpness in digital X-ray mammographic images. We extracted the local maximum pixel and watershed regions by using watershed algorithm. Then, we used the mean slope between local maximum and neighborhood pixels to extract microcalcification candidate pixels among local maximum pixels. During increasing threshold value to grow microcalcification region, at the maximum threshold value of the contrast and edge sharpness, the microcalcification area is decided. The regions of which area of grown candidate microcalfication region is larger than that of watershed region are excluded from microcalcifications. We showed the diagnosis algorithm can be used to aid diagnostic-radiologist in the early detection breast cancer.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.73-83
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• 2010

This study presents a method to segment an image, employing the statistics observed at each pixel location across sequential frame images. In the acquisition and analysis of spatial information, utilization of digital image processing technique has very important implications. Various image segmentation techniques have been presented to distinguish the area of digital images. In this study, based on the analysis of the spectroscopic characteristics of sequential frame images that had been previously researched, an image segmentation method was proposed by using the randomness occurring among a sequence of frame images for a same scene. First of all, we computed the mean and standard deviation values at each pixel and found reliable pixels to determine seed points using their standard deviation value. For segmenting an image into individual regions, we conducted region growing based on a T-test between reference and candidate sample sets. A comparative analysis was conducted to assure the performance of the proposed method with reference to a previous method. From a set of experimental results, it is confirmed that the proposed method using a sequence of frame images segments a scene better than a method using a single frame image.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.791-797
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• 2007

This paper proposes a semiautomatic vertebra segmentation method that overcomes limitations of both manual segmentation requiring tedious user interactions and fully automatic segmentation that is sensitive to initial conditions. The proposed method extracts fence surfaces between vertebrae, and segments a vertebra using fence-limited region growing. A fence surface is generated by a deformable model utilizing valley information in a valley emphasized Gaussian image. Fence-limited region growing segments a vertebra using gray value homogeneity and fence surfaces acting as barriers. The proposed method has been applied to ten patient data sets, and produced promising results accurately and efficiently with minimal user interaction.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.122-130
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• 2009

Conventional approaches for car number plate detection have dealt with those input images having similar sizes and simple background acquired under well organized environment. Thus their performance get reduced when input images include number plates with different sizes and when they are acquired under different lighting conditions. To solve these problem, this paper proposes a new scheme that uses the geometrical features of number plates and their topological information with reference to other features of the car. In the first step, those edges constructing a rectangle are detected and several pixels neighboring those edges are selected as the seed pixels for region growing. For region growing, color and intensity are used as the features, and the result regions are merged to construct the candidate for a number plate if their features are within a certain boundary. Once the candidates for the number plates are generated then their topological relations with other parts of the car such as lights are tested to finally determine the number plate region. The experimental results have shown that the proposed method can be used even for detecting small size number plates where characters are not visible.

• Journal of KIISE:Databases
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.263-279
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• 2009

Shape features in a content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system are divided into two classes: contour-based and region-based. Contour-based shape features are simple but they are not as efficient as region-based shape features. Most systems using the region-based shape feature have to extract the region firs t. The prior works on region-based systems still have shortcomings. They are complex to implement, particularly with respect to region extraction, and do not sufficiently use the spatial relationship between regions in the distance model In this paper, a region extraction method that is the combination of an edge-based method and a region growing method is proposed to accurately extract regions inside an object. Edges inside an object are accurately detected based on the Canny edge detector and the Hough transform. And the modified Integrated Region Matching (IRM) scheme which includes the adjacency relationship of regions is also proposed. It is used to compute the distance between images for the similarity search using shape features. The experimental results show the effectiveness of our region extraction method as well as the modified IRM. In comparison with other works, it is shown that the new region extraction method outperforms others.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.266-274
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• 2000

Medical image segmentation, which is essential in diagnosis and 3D reconstruction, is performed manually in most applications to produce accurate results. However, manual segmentation requires lots of time to segment, and is difficult even for the same operator to reproduce the same segmentation results for a region. To overcome such limitations, we propose a convenient and accurate semiautomatic segmentation method. The proposed method initially receives several control points of an ROI(Region of Interest Region) from a human operator, and then finds a boundary composed of a minimum cost path connecting the control points, which is the Live-wire method. Next, the boundary is modified to overcome limitations of the Live-wire, such as a zig-zag boundary and erosion of an ROI. Finally, the region is segmented by SRG(Seeded Region Growing), where the modified boundary acts as a blockage to prevent leakage. The proposed User-steered balloon method can overcome not only the limitations of the Live-wire but also the leakage problem of the SRG. Segmentation results of thigh muscles of the Visible Human are presented.